That girl—the one who always appeared to him in his dreams, whose name was always on his mind yet eluded him—she was clothed in the night, and stars were in her hair.
What had been her name? Ally? Amy? It started with an A. He always called out to her, screaming her name, begging her to rescue him, yet when he awoke, he remembered next to nothing of the sounds and letters that formed that beautiful, simple name. He wondered about his own—did he have a name? No one ever called him anything other than 'Asset', specifically, although some just called him 'it.' Was he an 'it'? He didn't think so. He thought 'its' were reserved for inanimate objects, things of neither gender, but who was he to question his masters?
Why had that girl been given a name? Names made feelings, and feelings made liabilities; H.Y.D.R.A. had always taught him that lesson— he had known it for years now. At least, he supposed it had been years. It could have been days for all he knew, yet somewhere in the back of his mind he was aware that the world around him was changing, as if lots of time had passed. The borders and limits of time were fuzzy in his mind and confused him greatly; the mysteries of age and progression meant next to nothing to him—he was a hunter, a silent killer who was known yet unknown. Why should he be bothered by the passing of years? Those lost days didn't affect him.
He entered the H.Y.D.R.A. compound uneasily; something about that place, the only home he knew or remembered, made something within him stir that he deeply disliked. He went to his cell. His movements were robotic, the metal arm hanging stiffly at his side as he prepared to give his mission report. Very rarely did he write them down; he had them committed to memory.
He sat down in the chair, that long, metal chair that now held the aura of pain. He was often plagued by spare bits of abstract memories that appeared and disappeared with fluidity, but he had clear memories associated with that chair. It was his motivation and it was his doom, the end goal for all missions, and the source of the pain inflicted upon him when he remembered a small fragment of his past. That is, if he had a past; he couldn't remember much before being at the H.Y.D.R.A. compound.
'Mission report?' Pierce asked him. He hadn't noticed when Pierce had entered the room, being consumed with his own confusing thoughts.
'Successful', he answered. 'They've pronounced Vanderbilt's death a suicide.'
'Excellent', Pierce said idly. 'Durnum, put him in cryo.'
There was coldness for a fraction of a second, and then there was darkness.
Then, there was fear, an emotion known to him only because of these dreams. And she came—that tall, beautiful, terrifying girl, the one dark as the night, brown hair flowing all about her, sprinkled with the expanse of infinite stars. He ran to her, scared yet undaunted, and grabbed her arm as hard as he could. To a living being the arm might have been ripped off in a frantic frenzy, but here he was gentle, he was human.
Human. A strange word perhaps, fraught with vulnerability, but now it carried no fear, rather, a deep, gnawing desire to become that. The girl—she was human, yet not so. She was ethereal, evanescent, other-worldly, although such adjectives could not describe such a being. She gripped his arm back, her brown eyes looking into his grey ones. Her eyes were dark as shadow, hard as diamonds, yet soft and gentle as a ray of golden sunrise.
'I've been waiting for you', she whispered in his ear. 'You always seem to slip away.'
'I have no such intent', he assured her.
'I have lived the lives of a thousand men, seen the deaths of a thousand suns; you come and leave like the tide, like the breath of the sea. They tell me that someday you will return for all eternity. When that day comes, I will be happy indeed.'
And she was carried away on the wind, disappearing as a fine dust. The blackness of her dress and the stars of her hair fell away and swirled all around him into a never ending sky—it was clear, and cloudless. The stars wheeled overhead, and the sky was split by a high cry, her eternal call, her song of sorrow. She cried out his name, and he called out hers, frantic, panicked. Where was she? Where was his lifeline? He didn't know where he was, or why he was here; he knew only this girl, this mysterious, nameless spectre—without her, there was no point to the fantasy, was there?
'Where are you?' he screamed, letting the fear take over him. 'Where are you?'
There was no answer; the swirling sky was stilled as her song came to a close. The stars fell to the ground, dead and dark, and there was nothing, except for the brushing of the girl's skin against his own and a final whisper of goodbye. He fell to his knees, thinking of the name she had called out.
Barnes. Bucky Barnes.
Did he have a name now? A name—that mark of belonging, of affection; did he indeed have a name?
And then a door opened and a sudden warmth flooded through his veins, and snippets of dark conversations drifted into his ears.
Several men, carefully trained, handled him as one might a delicate, dangerous object. He was placed in a chair, still stiff from cryo, and began to inspect the state of his arm.
No longer did he have a name. He was nameless, just as the girl of his fantasies; he was an Asset, and he was submissive.